The Difference Between Ministers & Civil Servants
- The key distinctions between ministers and civil servants are the following
Ministers
- Ministers are appointed for political reasons as they are leading members of the ruling party
- Ministers are essentially temporary as they hold office for as long as the prime minister wishes them to do so
- Ministers have a very specific political agenda and represent a government elected on a popular mandate to carry out certain stated policies
Civil Servants
- Civil servants are appointed as they have specialist or administrative skills and are expected to remain politically neutral
- Civil servants are permanent and can expect to retain their position or even rise up the ranks for promotion
- Civil servants must have no political agenda no matter what their private views may be and should remain free from political bias
- Ministers make the political decisions and civil servants facilitate and ensure successful implementation however it would be naive to think that they cannot influence ministers
- When they advise on policy, there is a chance that this could be manipulated to steer the minister
- If the civil servant is acting in the national interest there may be little harm done
- However, if the civil servant is acting out of political interest then this is strictly forbidden
- Civil servants are also expected to be anonymous and keep a low public profile
- This involves not making public statements about policy or publicly revealing their role in policymaking
- They are allowed to reveal what they work for and their rank but not the advice that they are giving
- This presents a problem in democracy as they cannot be held accountable if they are anonymous
- This is addressed with ministerial responsibility, whereby the minister is answerable to Parliament
Summary Of The Status Of A Minister
- Are politically committed to one party
- Are temporary and hold office as long as PM wishes for them to
- Are expected to make political decisions
- Have to use judgements about the outcome of their decisions
- Have a high public profile
- Are publicly accountable for the actions of their department
- Will lose office if their party loses power
Summary Of The Status Of A Civil Servant
- Must display no political allegiance
- Are permanent or will spend a long time in the civil service
- May only suggest alternatives in a neutral way
- Identify possible outcomes in a neutral way
- Are expected to be largely anonymous
- Cannot be held publicly accountable for what they do
Civil Service Neutrality
This is considered very important and includes the following rules:
- Civil servants must not be politically active. The lower ranks of the service may join a political party, but not be active. Senior civil servants should not be party members
- They should not express politically biased views either in public or in the course of their professional duties
- They must separate their service to the government from any political service to the ruling party. In other words, they must serve a minister and not a party
- Their advice should be free of political bias and in the national interest within the constraints of official government policy
- They must try to avoid situations which may lay them open to external political pressure
- In giving evidence to a parliamentary committee, they must only express views that conform to official government policy; they may not express personal opinions outside their department
- Political advisers to ministers are not expected to be neutral as they serve interests of the government and the ruling party
- It is expected that they be politically sympathetic to the aims of the ruling party
- This can cause tension as whilst civil servants are trying to give neutral advice, they may feel that their position is being undermined by political advisers
- A mini rivalry has developed between civil servants and advisers as to who can gain the minister’s ear
- Also, sometimes there can be blurring between the roles of the two
- It is ultimately up to the minister to distinguish between political and neutral advice
Open Government
- This refers to the idea of allowing the public and media more access into the decision making process
- Relationships between individuals in departments remain shrouded in mystery despite the Freedom of Information Act going some way to assuage this
- The requirement for civil servants to be neutral and anonymous has led to a lot of secrecy in government although successive governments since the 1970s have pledged to be more open
- It has become part of the civil servant culture to be secretive which has made it difficult for members of Parliament to obtain relevant information from government
- The concept of ‘open government’ remains more an aspiration than a reality
